subway

It’s January, and everyone looks lumpy and strange in their winter coats. I fell in love on the train tonight for the fourth time this week. January looked perfect on her and she had the type of hands that I can’t stop staring at: the knuckly sinewy type that you can practically feel just by looking. I laughed at my book and looked up to see if she’d noticed, and she hadn’t, she was listening to music with her eyes closed. When you fall in train love no one opens their mouths, which is good because I talk kind of crooked and she might’ve said something dumb. Instead I watched her hands and fell more in love and we got off at the same stop but she was faster, up the stairs and out of sight. “I love you,” I screamed at the back of her beanie, in my head.

So here’s what happened: I was on the L train around 5:45 p.m. on a Monday with an enormous tote bag slung over one shoulder and my cat slung over the other. She was packed away in her carrier, which resembles a mesh-sided gym bag. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t drawing attention to herself, either.

Eve (the cat) and I were headed back from a friend’s apartment in Williamsburg, where we’d taken refuge while our own place was fumigated for bed bugs. Five hours earlier I’d scooped some of her litter into a plastic bag, bagged up her food bowl and a cup of kibble, packed a cardboard box to serve as a kitty bathroom, steam-treated her carrier, and wrestled her into it. She’d put up a fight, snagging my sweater and grabbing a nearby power cord with both front paws in a disturbingly human-like effort to keep from being caged.

In the end I won the fight, and we were off to the L train. When we arrived at the friend’s apartment, Eve immediately peed in the tub, clawed the couch, and did her best to remind the friend why — although she’d been tempted to — she’d never adopted a cat herself.

It had been a long, stressful day for both of us, and by the time we clambered back onto the L train we were both worn out. There was nowhere to sit, so I stood near the door: a defeated girl and her defeated cat.

About halfway through the trip, Eve expressed both our moods by emitting a pitiable yowl, and two girls seated near the end of the bench turned to look at us. They were obviously sisters — I’d put their ages at roughly 10 and 7. They wore their hair in matching curly ponytails, and until a moment ago they’d been poring over a book I recognized from my own kid-hood: Dragonology. While the older sister read out loud, the younger sister drew on a notepad in her lap. When Eve meowed, both book and pad were forgotten as they giggled and cooed over the cat on the subway.

I smiled at them and they turned away, embarrassed. But a few minutes later I felt a tap on my right elbow. It was the older sister, and she strained upward to say, very quietly:

“My sister would like to know if you want to sit down.”

I blinked and had to repeat the words several times to myself before they made sense: “My sister would like to know if you want to sit down.” I stared, nonplussed, at the 10-year-old and the 7-year-old who’d offered me their seats amidst a train car packed with adults who hadn’t. They stared back. Finally, I said (truthfully) that they were very kind to offer but that I only had two stops to go. They nodded, and the younger girl handed me the drawing she’d been working on.

“For your cat,” she said, a little shy.

“Thank you so much,” I replied. “This is awesome.”

And it was; she’d drawn four different types of Pokémon lined up and labeled according to their abilities. I folded the page and put it in the pocket of Eve’s carrier. I was near tears, but the girls — oblivious — had gone back to their book. Two stops later, I got off the train.

Now the drawing is hanging on my fridge. I’ll live the rest of my life trying to deserve it.